The sites are all branded Kijiji - Swahili for village. They resemble CraigsList sites, in which eBay bought a 25 per cent stake in last August.

The sites are organised around cities - so kijij.fr is split into sections for Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris, Strasbourg and Toulouse. Within each city section there are adverts for services, stuff for sale, property, jobs, courses, babysitters as well as lonely hearts ads and a community section.

Kijiji is run by Alex Kazim, senior vice president of new ventures, and a "small team of entreprenurial employees".